Birth rate goes down for 9th year in row

The birth rate went down for the ninth year in a row, but the fall was less sharp in 2019, according to Statistics Finland.

At the birth rate prevailing in 2019, a woman would give birth to an average of 1.35 children, which was 1.41 children in the previous year.

The fall in the birth rate became less sharp especially due to the development in the last months of the year, when the number of births did not decline any more as it did in the early part of the year.

A total of 45,613 babies were born in 2019, which is 1,964 fewer than in the year before.

The number of births had gone down by 2,744 children in 2018 from the previous year.

In 2019, the total fertility rate measuring the birth rate was the lowest of all times, 1.35 children per woman.

The birth rate has been falling throughout the 2010s and the fall steepened after 2015, but in 2019 it was less sharp. The total fertility rate diminished by 4.3 per cent from the previous year, while in 2018 it had fallen by 5.5 per cent.